It’s been a pretty good cou- ple of months for KPMG’s Swarnika Mehta. For starters,she’s being recognized as one of

Consulting’s Rising Stars of theProfession. In 2015, she won theKPMG National Advisory Chair-man’s Award, the highest honorin Advisory.

“One of the proudest momentsof my career was winning theKPMG National Advisory Chair-man’s Award,” she says. “It’s thefirm’s most prestigious honor, giv-en to those who stand out throughtheir long-term commitment toexcellence, their exceptional con-tributions, and their drive for con-And what about this other awardshe’s received—the Rising Stars?

“It is humbling and gratifying tobe honored with this Rising Stars ofthe Profession award at such an ear-ly stage of my career,” Mehta says.“While it validates my professionalcontributions it also encourages meto continue on this path and inspireothers to do the same.”During the course of her career atKPMG, Mehta says she’s been for-tunate to be surrounded by dynamicleaders, from whom she constantlydraws on everything that she learns.“They have been particularly pivotalto my success,” Mehta says. “If Ican inspire my mentees in a mean-ingful way as my mentors and spon-sors have done for me, I would feelthat I’ve upheld the values learnt.”

Her father, also a career consultant once gave her some pretty
savvy advice. He said: “To thrive
in a profession like consulting you
have to make every effort to stay
ahead of the curve, especially with
the current rate of technological
and cultural changes. This means
keeping up with the latest news and
trends in your industry, and being
able to pioneer.”

Swarnika Mehta

Excellence in
Information Technolog

Prior to joining Trexin, Claire Pedersen Patel, worked at another firm where she
was managing a workstream of a
difficult IT strategy project. She
had never developed an IT strategy
before and was anxious to ensure
the work stayed on track. She had
a conversation with one of the consultants that really stuck with her.

It was about what “release version”they were on in life.

“We talked about how major lifeevents created ‘major releases’ andother smaller developments led tointerim releases,” Patel says. “I tookaway from this that we may not haveour entire careers or life planned out,but we can always be driving towardsour next ‘release.’ This has driven meto constantly drive forward and im-prove myself.”She has always been passionateabout building the next generation ofconsultants, but in 2015, she set outto double the size of her team. By theend of 2015, Patel had tripled the sizeher team. She fundamentally changedhow projects were staffed at Trexin.

Her team is the fastest growing part
of the company and will double again
in 2016.

“I have found that the most grat-ifying thing is to attract a team ofgreat people and create an environ-ment that allows them to grow andflourish over the long term,” Patelsays. “These are the simple ingre-dients for success in our profes-sion, and I’m so proud of the teamwe have at Trexin.”Consulting is a source of nev-er-ending challenge and opportu-nity, she says. “I am always excit-ed to start a new project where Iget to hone my skills and design anew solution,” she says. “I enjoytaking the time to learn exactlywhat is driving the client needand then customizing a solution toachieve results.”